Our Real-Life Laundry Routine for a Family of 7 (That Actually Works)

Laundry for seven people is…a lot.

There are five kids constantly changing clothes, sports uniforms appearing out of nowhere, towels, bedding, socks that somehow lose their match between the hamper and the washing machine…

You know. Normal family life. 😂

And I wish I could tell you I have this beautiful laundry room where everything is folded into perfect little stacks and nothing ever lands on the floor.

I do not. 😂

Actually, our laundry room also happens to be our mudroom, which means it has become the unofficial “I don’t know where this goes, so I’ll put it here” room of our house.

And it drives me CRAZY.

But over the years, I have figured out a laundry routine that works pretty well for our family.

It’s nothing fancy. There isn’t some elaborate laundry schedule hanging on the wall.

It’s just a simple rhythm we’ve gotten into that keeps me from spending an entire day buried under seven people’s clothes.

So if laundry feels like one of those never-ending jobs in your house too, here’s what we do.

Our laundry room + mudroom…aka the room where apparently everything in our house belongs. 😂

I Don’t Have a “Laundry Day”

This was probably one of the biggest things that helped me.

I don’t save all of our laundry for one day of the week.

I would drown. 😂

Instead, I wash clothes about every other day.

Dirty clothes stay in hampers and every other day they’re brought up so I can run loads.

That means I’m usually dealing with a manageable amount instead of waiting until every hamper in the house is overflowing and suddenly needing to wash 14 loads of laundry.

Is it always exactly every other day?

Nope.

Life happens. We have sports. Appointments. Busy weekends. Sometimes I get behind.

But that’s the general rhythm I come back to.

I Separate the Kids’ Laundry From Ours

With seven people in the house, I learned pretty quickly that separating laundry by person wasn’t going to happen. 😂

Instead, I keep it really simple.

I wash all of the kids’ clothes together, and I wash the adult clothes separately.

That’s it.

I’m not sorting five different kids’ loads or trying to remember whose clothes need to be washed on which day. The kids’ clothes go in together, ours go in together, and it keeps the whole process much easier for me.

But the part that has probably saved me the most time comes after everything is clean and dry.

Everyone Gets a Basket

Each of the kids has their own colored laundry basket.

Once their clothes are clean and dry, I sort everything into their baskets — and then my job is done. 🙌

Folding and putting their clothes away is part of their weekly chores.

Does that mean the baskets always get emptied immediately?

Absolutely not. 😂

Sometimes I have to remind them. Sometimes a basket sits there longer than I’d like. And sometimes I’m pretty sure someone has been getting dressed directly out of their clean laundry basket for three days.

But it takes one huge job off my plate.

Instead of me washing, drying, folding and putting away laundry for seven people, the kids are responsible for the last part of the process.

And honestly, that little bit of shared responsibility makes a big difference in our house.

Towels + Bedding Have Their Own Rhythm

Clothes are the every-other-day thing around here, but I handle towels and bedding a little differently.

Towels get washed about once a week.

Bedding gets washed about once a month.

Could I probably wash all the bedding more often? Sure. 😂 But with seven beds, I also have to live my life.

I’ve learned that one of the biggest things that keeps me from feeling completely buried by laundry is not trying to do everything all the time.

Everything has its own general rhythm, and when life gets busy, I just come back to it.

Where We Keep Allllll the Laundry Stuff

Our laundry room is also our mudroom, which sounds convenient until you realize that apparently every single item in our house belongs in this room. 😂

Laundry baskets? Mudroom.

Shoes? Mudroom.

Backpacks? Mudroom.

Random things the kids don’t know where to put? You guessed it…mudroom.

But underneath the everyday chaos, we actually have a setup that works pretty well for us.

We keep our laundry baskets in the mudroom closet, have a hook where I can keep hangers for clothes that need to be hung up, and have a pantry-style cabinet where we store laundry detergent, stain removers and all the other laundry supplies.

It’s definitely not one of those perfectly styled laundry rooms you see on Pinterest.

It’s a working laundry room for a family of seven.

And most days, it looks like one. 😂

Real life. Laundry, shoes, sports stuff, boxes…and apparently a basketball. 😂

What Actually Makes This Work for Us

I don’t think there’s anything groundbreaking about our laundry routine.

Honestly, I think the reason it works is because I’ve stopped trying to find the perfect system.

I wash clothes often enough that they don’t completely take over.

I keep the kids’ laundry separate from ours.

I give everyone a place for their clean clothes to go.

And most importantly — I don’t make myself responsible for every single step.

The kids can fold their own clothes. They can put them away. They can bring their dirty laundry to the mudroom.

It may not always happen exactly when I’d like it to (because…kids 😂), but having everyone take a little ownership keeps the entire job from falling on me.

If Laundry Feels Never-Ending at Your House Too…

Maybe you don’t need a prettier laundry room.

Or a complicated laundry schedule.

Or seven matching baskets with perfectly printed labels.

Maybe you just need to figure out which part of the process is making you crazy and make that one part easier.

For us, it was washing clothes more frequently and handing some of the responsibility back to the kids.

Your system might look completely different.

And that’s okay.

We’re not trying to run perfect homes here.

We’re just trying to create a little less chaos so there’s more room for the things that actually matter. 🤍